Finally, a drive to upgrade N.J. colleges

Robert Sciarrino/The Star-LedgerProspective students and their families visit Montclair State University last year. The school has blamed tuition hikes on rising capital costs.

It might come as a shock, but New Jersey is a famous cheapskate in one area, spending less than nearly any other state, even Mississippi.

Sound good? Well, it’s not.

Because that one area is support for public higher education. Our overstuffed colleges and universities are turning away qualified middle-class kids, forcing families to spend much more on out-of-state schools. Or to downshift to community colleges. Or to abandon the whole idea.

For every 100 kids who graduate from high school in New Jersey, our public universities and colleges have only 19 seats, the fewest in the nation. Delaware has more than 60. For our kids, this tight squeeze is a roadblock on the path to the American dream.

“Rutgers is not a rich kid’s school,” said Richard McCormick, the university president. “The public colleges and universities serve the middle-class boys and girls of this state.”

This crisis is killing good jobs as well. High-tech firms — especially pharmaceuticals — have moved thousands of high-paying jobs to states like California and Massachusetts, where they can form partnerships with top-flight research universities.

“I don’t have a single lab left, so I can no longer hire scientists,” says Susan Cole, president of Montclair State University. “Can you imagine running a university in New Jersey and not being able to hire scientists? It’s insane.”

Here’s the scary part: It’s getting worse. Two decades ago, state aid covered about half the costs at these schools. Today, it’s about one-quarter, with the biggest cuts coming from the most liberal governor, Jon Corzine.

“It is an easy area for governors and legislators to neglect,” says former Gov. Tom Kean. “Nobody objects when you cut their funds. There is no spokesman, no secretary of higher ed, nobody representing that community.”

The schools have adapted, painfully. Montclair State has borrowed heavily to cover capital costs, driving up tuition. Rutgers runs classes until 10 p.m. most nights to get the most use of its buildings and labs. The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey cut spending at its affiliated hospital.

And everywhere, more students squeeze into each classroom, chipping away at the quality of their college experience and driving many of the best students out of state.
“This is a tipping point,” Kean says. “They just can’t do it anymore. If this defunding continues, we’re going to have institutions collapsing around us. And that will be very deleterious to the state and the economy.”

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The surprise is that today, even though we are broke, the political stars are aligning to address the problem.

Everything in New Jersey starts with the governor, and Chris Christie calls this his top spending priority when the economy turns around. Mark that, because the man never talks about wanting to spend money.

Christie appointed Kean to head a task force on the issue, knowing that Kean has long been on a crusade to invest more in higher ed.

“I don’t think he would have appointed Tom Kean to do this if he didn’t intend to act,” Cole says. “And Tom Kean is not the type who is going to write a report and put it on a shelf. He didn’t do that with the 9-11 report, and he won’t do it with this.”

Kean’s report, released this week, is a manifesto for more investment. And Senate President Stephen Sweeney, who is driving the Democrats’ agenda, is on board as well.

As for the budget crunch, this investment could come gradually. Kean suggests a revolving fund for capital costs at the outset, funded with borrowed money. The schools could use that to rebuild labs, fix roofs, and build classrooms and dormitories. A larger bond could come later.

A healthy boost in operating costs, meanwhile, would run about $500 million a year. But that could be phased in over several years. In the meantime, Kean would repeal costly mandates, and give colleges more authority to negotiate labor contracts and cut other costs.

Christie endorsed that approach last week: “The short term is to squeeze efficiencies out and to also place the college presidents in control of their own destiny,” he said. “And then the long term, to make a longer state investment both in terms of our operating subsidies and capital subsidies.”

For now, Christie won’t even commit to level funding for next year. Kean sees that as critical.

“The first thing to do is to stop the bleeding,” says Kean. “We’ve decreased aid over the last 10 or 15 years like no other state in the country. We’ve gotten ourselves into a real hole.”

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It is remarkable that New Jersey is in such a deep hole. We spend lavishly on K-12 education, but when our kids get that high school diploma, they pass through some worm hole into a different world.

“I hear from kids that the science labs in their high schools are better than what they have at Rutgers,” McCormick says.

How is this possible? In part, it’s the culture of the Northeast. In states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia, the state legislatures are full of graduates from public colleges, and private colleges are rarer.

William Owen, president of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, saw that when he was in North Carolina, as a professor of medicine at Duke University.

“It’s amazing to see the support for higher education there,” he says. “You see tobacco farmers and they know, ‘My boy, my girl, is going to go to that college. And it’s going to get better for my family.’ We don’t have that here.”

And, as Kean pointed out, New Jersey has no statewide voice to speak for higher education. It should be the president of Rutgers, by default. But McCormick is awful at politics. At political events, he often cowers around the fringes. And he has a knack for annoying governors.

“I don’t have a good political touch, and it shows when I’m in Trenton,” he concedes. “I probably act somewhat insecure and nervous, like I’m out of my element. Because to some degree, I am, as opposed to when I’m on campus. I’ll do my best, but I’m probably not going to be able to do it single-handedly, to put it mildly.”

The Kean report has sent a high-voltage charge through the higher ed community, especially when its members heard Chrsitie embrace its principles. They sound now a little like a losing baseball team that just drafted Babe Ruth. Could they actually win one?

“This is our chance,” Cole says. “If we don’t move forward on the basis of this report, there will be reason for someone even as optimistic as I am to despair.”